Dungeon Rehab 1

Chapter 1

Orange jumpsuits. Bland green walls. It would have looked like any ordinary prison but for the four immersive tanks aligned along the back wall. Four men sat on metal chairs affixed to the floor. Grant cracked his knuckles. “We’re supposed to get in those things?”

Madison Blue, dressed in a lab coat over a pantsuit, nodded. “Once immersed in the deprivation tanks, you will enter the world of Allmyth, and that is where your rehabilitation will take place.”

“You ain’t gonna mess with our heads, though, right?” Grant spoke mostly in grunt tones. A slab of a man with muscles on muscles, he had serpent tattoos crawling over his arms and face. He was facing 25 years for assault and battery, attempted murder, violation of parole and a restraining order. “None of that hypnosis or nothin.”

“Actually, the whole purpose of this is to mess with your heads.” Madison said, doing her best to hide her excitement. She was, after all, a scientist. “Your experiences will change you. Neuroplasticity assures that everything you do and experience brings about changes in the way you think. The way you react to the world.” 

Grant frowned. “My lawyer said something about that.” He scoffed. “You can’t change me, though.”

Eric, serving 12 years for hacking, raised his hand. When Madison nodded, he cleared his throat. “Veteran gamer here. Why can’t we make our own characters?”

“Your initial class and race have been selected as the result of your psychological profiles to maximize your learning experience.” She gestured toward a mousy young woman with glasses and long bangs dressed like a librarian. “My assistant Kim worked with me on that. She’s interning while completing her PHD in psychology.”

Kim shared a shy smile with the group. In a near whisper, she said, “We designed the experience to optimize your chances to have a transformative…” and as she said the word transformative, she glanced at Grant, a sly smile on her lips…”experience.”

Paul, a scrawny runt with a rat face doing 15 years for running a pyramid scheme, snickered. “This is all science fiction bullshit.”

Madison shook her head. “If you don’t believe, why did you sign up for the project?”

“Wandering around smashing on elves sounds better than sitting around this dump.”

The other men agreed. “Yeah. I heard there’d even be bars and shit.”

“There are bars. And shit.” Madison gestured toward a series of fluid filled tanks. “Climb into your tanks. Once you’ve entered the VR world, you’ll receive a tutorial on the rules and how the system works.”

The men got up and climbed into the tanks. “It’s warm,” Hal was facing serious time for identity theft. He was not cut out for prison life, so spending his time playing role-playing games like some nerd seemed much better.  

These men were the first volunteers to enter her VR Rehabilitation experiment. When it worked, and Madison was sure it would work, it would change everything. Instead of spending years in prison only to cycle right back into a life of crime, in the future convicts would have their brains rewired in virtual reality. When they came out—if they came out—they could not be the same.

She would put an end to crime once and for all.

More immediately, these four men would be freed from their maladaptive thinking and become productive citizens, assets to their communities. Watching Grant squeeze his huge body into the tank, a faint smile played on her lips. He would be changed most of all.

The tanks sealed. The warden had watched it all over a closed circuit TV. “They can’t hear me now?” Madison nodded. “You know I am not a supporter of this scheme of yours. I only agreed because the governor insisted.” He frowned. “One hint of trouble, I pull the plug.”

Madison plastered a smile on her face. “Thank you warden. I predict you will be impressed with the results we achieve.”

“I doubt it. Good day.” His camera turned off.

Madison turned to the control panel. She looked at Kim. “And so with a flip of a switch, we make history.” She flipped the switch. They turned their attention to the computer screens in front of them.

The men, floating in the tanks, went dark, finding themselves in a null space– no sight, no sound, no physical sensations at all. They’d been told this would happen, so despite their discomfort they waited.  gradually they began to regain their sense of sight as stone walls lit by flickering torchlight faded into view. Sound followed. Dripping. Dripping.

Eric tried to look down at himself, but he couldn’t do that yet. He was impressed with the graphics. This looks real, he thought, wishing he could reach out and touch it. His sense of smell returned. Musty. Mold. He felt his body stitching itself together, bone then muscle and sinew and skin. He looked down at his hands and a screen popped up:

Class: Wizard

Name: Morden

LVL: 3

HP: 15

Strength: 7

Intelligance: 10

Wisdom: 8

Constition: 5

Charisma: 5

Mana: 8

“I wish my charisma was higher,” he thought, but he could dig being a wizard. The pop-up screen had tabs for spells and inventory, but before he could check he heard a scream and then what sounded like a 5-year old girl scream, “What the hell?”

Turning, he saw a pretty female elf. She was not a little girl, despite her squeaky voice.  She was a full-figured woman. She clutched her chest with both hands, a stunned look on her face. “This is bullshit.” She whispered in her tea kettle voice.

Girl? Who was the girl? Looking around, Eric saw two other guys– a huge, hulking Viking and a reedy guy in leathers. Over their heads floated their names and classes: warrior and thief.

Who was the girl? Eric wondered, looking at her and, being a guy, instantly rating her—she was a 10 with a perfect face, her bombshell body squeezed into a corset that made the offered a primo view of her abundant breasts.  Eric had never seen such a beautiful woman. Is she an NPC he wondered, that thought followed by, can we have sex with NPCs?

He mentally clicked on her and her stats popped up:

Class: Healer

Name: Divinity

LVL: 3

HP: 15

Strength: 3

Intelligance: 7

Wisdom: 10

Constitution: 5

Charisma: 12

Mana: 8

“Don’t fucking look at me,” the girl shouted. She began to look around the room as searching for something specific.

“Who are you?” Eric asked. Then he looked up and shouted, meaning to address Madison. “What’s going on? Who is this?” No answer.

The girl turned and ran toward a large, ancient oaken door, her long golden hair swirling around her. She yanked on the steel ring, but it wouldn’t open. “Let me out of here,” she yelled, pounding on the door with her little fist.

Deciding to sort it out himself, he raised his hand. “I’m Eric.”

“Paul,” the Viking said, his eyes going wide at the sound of his deep, booming voice.

“Hal,” the guy in leathers said.

They all turned their attention to the elf girl. She had her back against the door now and glared back at them with wild, angry eyes, her long hair falling across her face. “I want out,” she yelled, chest heaving.

By process of elimination, Grant decided to take a guess: “Grant?”  The girl did not seem like Grant. Not just because she was a she, but she seemed so – emotional.

“That’s Grant?” Hal let his eyes roam up and down Grant’s figure. “Dude, you’re hot as hell.”

“Don’t look at me.” Grant pulled his hair out of his face.  He looked up, addressing Madison. up again. “I’m going to kill you…”  His voice trembled. He started panting, making little squeaking noises. “What’s happening to me?” Tears rolled down his cheeks.

“You’re having a panic attack,” Eric said. He moved forward, thinking to see if he could calm Grant down. It had to be a shock for him to find himself like– a her. “My ex-girlfriend used to have these all the time.”

“You’re ex?” Grant barred his teeth. All the guys had the same thought but were smart enough not to say it. Grant was cute when he was angry, like an aggressive kitten. “I’m not a girl.”

Eric reached toward the horrified little man. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” he said in his calming voice. He’d had a lot of experience calming a panicked female. He knew just what to do. She needed human contact and calm. He reached closer, meaning to put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Grant lashed out, throwing an awkward punch. Eric caught his arm, spun him and pinned his arms behind his back while lifting him off his feet. “Calm down. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Grant kicked and writhed, shocked and terrified to feel something he hadn’t felt since he’d been a child: helpless. “Don’t tell me what to do. Let go of me.” He heard himself and to his own ears he sounded just like some ridiculous little girl. His vision blurred as his eyes filled with tears. The fact he was crying in front of these men was even worse than the fact he was now in the body of a woman.

Madison turned to Kim. “In the future, let’s go a little easier on the anxiety transmitters. She’s a little overwrought.”

Kim nodded. “Oops.” She made a note to reduce the amount of neurotransmitters she’d flood Grant’s physical brain with when they wanted to induce an emotionally unstable state in her.

Madison wore a headset and tapped a button to turn on the microphone. “Gentleman. Lady. Congratulations. You are now fully immersed in the game. Once Divinity calms down, we can start the tutorial quest.”

Eric set Grant down. Furious, Grant punched him on the chest, but the little man was so weak the punch didn’t hurt at all. “Dude,” Eric said.

Grant had to once more pull his long hair out of his eyes. “I quit. Take me out of this.”

“There’s no quitting,” Madison answered in a detached, clinical voice. “You have to play.”

“I’m not playing.” Grant screamed.

Madison grinned as she slipped into the role of Game Master. “The orcs down the hall hear Divinity screaming,” she said in her dungeon master voice.

“Orcs?” Paul said. “Like in those movies?”

They heard a door slam open somewhere in the distance, then clattering, grunting. Feet pounding.

“Get ready to fight,” Madison said. “This will be the first tutorial, but if the orcs cut, you will bleed.”

“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do.” Paul hefted the war hammer. He’d materialized holding it.

Eric had gamed a lot, so he took charge. “You’re a brick. Big, strong, can deal and take lots of damage. Just hit stuff.” He checked Hal’s character sheet. “You’re quick and hard to hit. Move fast and strike– use your short swords.”

“My what?”

“Take them out of your inventory.”

“Okay. How do I do that?” Eric explained. Short swords appeared in Hal’s hands. “Wow. That’s cool as hell.”

“You will have an instinctive sense on how to use weapons you have the skills for,” Madison said. “You will also find it nearly impossible to use weapons you don’t have the skills for in the game, even if you are proficient with them in real life.”

“Interesting. How does that work?” Eric loved understanding how systems worked, and as a former hacker he was curious how the system would negate a person’s knowledge in game.

Bang. Bang. The door shook and splintered as the orcs pounded on it with their axes.

Eric forgot all about the programming question. He looked at Grant. “Check your spell tab. See what spells you can cast.”

“I’m not doing this,” Grant said, crossing his arms, feeling them bump into his soft and abundant breasts, then grunting with annoyance.

An axe blade splintered through the door.

“Bro, we need you. We’re about to get attacked by dorks.” Paul loved how deep and commanding his voice sounded.

Eric checked his own spell tab. Magic Missile. Good Good. It cost 3 mana points. He also had Shield, which would protect him or any one other member of their group from physical attacks. That cost 5 points, so he could only cast one magic missile and a shield or two Magic Missiles. He prepped one missile to start, raising his hands, which crackled with eldritch energy.

Hal admired the light show. “Cool.”.

The orcs gashed open the door. One slipped into the room, then another and another. They smelled like boiled onions.

Thick with red, scaly skin and faces that looked like they’d been punched ugly, their eyes immediately fell on Grant, their tongues lolling from their mouths like over-heated dogs. “The female,” one of the orcs said in a hoarse voice. “Give us the female. We let you live.”

Grant’s skin crawled. He felt a surge of rage and almost drew the dagger strapped to his thigh, but then shook his head. He wasn’t going to play this game. “None of this shit is real.”

“It all looks real, though,” Hal said, crouching, weaving his short swords in the air like he’d seen in movies. The orcs froze. The scene froze.

“The orcs have offered to spare your lives if you give them Divinity. What do you do?” Madison said.

“She doesn’t want to play.” Hal shrugged. “Let them have her. She’s useless, anyway.”

“I’m not a she, asshole.” Grant did draw his dagger now, but with the thought of stabbing Hal.

Eric looked up. “No. We don’t give them the girl.”

“You don’t have to look up to address me.”

“We fight.” Eric said.

Hal grunted. “Who put you in charge?”

“We’re here to be rehabbed, remember?” Eric nodded toward Grant, who watched it all with furious if pretty eyes. “We have to do the right thing.”

“Oh, yeah.” Hal raised his hammer. “That makes sense. We’ll protect her.”

Protect her? Protect me? Hell no. Grant smiled as an idea occurred to him, a way out. “Fuck all this bullshit.” He charged at the orcs, swinging his dagger.

Madison tapped. “The orcs unfreeze.”

The other members of the party, caught off guard by Grant’s sudden move, froze  as he ran awkwardly to the biggest of the orcs, his long hair flowing behind him. Grant stabbed at the orc leader, but unused to this curvy new body he looked as gangly and awkward as a teen girl who’d never been in a fight.

Laughing, the orc slapped Grant’s dagger out of his hand, then grabbed him around the waist. “Kill me,” Grant shouted, face shocked. “You’re supposed to kill me.”

“We have better uses for you, pretty one.” He hefted Grant up and tossed him onto this shoulder. “Orc Leader will reward us for bringing sweet female to join his harem.”

Grant’s eyes went wide as he realized what the orc had in mind. “They can’t, right?” He shouted at Madison. The orc carried him toward the door. “Stay out of way, humans.”

Madison detached, clinical voice answered: “Anything that can happen in real life, can happen in the game.”

“What kind of freak are you?” Grant began to struggle. His brain, like all the others, experienced all of this as real, and it did not like the implications of what the orc suggested. Even the part of Grant that knew this was “real” did not want to have the virtual experience the orcs had planned.

Not even sure what it would do in this game, Eric unleashed his magic missile. It flashed from his hand and slammed into the orc’s head, which proceeded to explode. “Holy shit,” Eric said, looking at his smoking hand.

“Yeah, buddy,” Paul said.

Perceiving Eric as the greatest threat, the remaining orcs charged him. Paul swung his hammer in a great arc, sending two of them tumbling across the floor. He roared and charged the fallen orcs, pounding them down with his hammer, loving the way the handle shook in his hands which each deadly blow.

Eric’s eyes went wide. Paul seemed like a wild animal and--

“A little help,” Hal shouted. The last three orcs were on him. He dodged, tumbled, parried, but they drove him back toward a corner where he wouldn’t be able to move. More so, his dodging took a lot of energy, and he panted for breath as he grew tired.

Paul charged over, smashing one of the orcs with his hammer. Eric fired his second magic missile and took out the other one. Now freed up, Hal hurled one of his short swords, and as the orc moved to block it, he darted in a lodged his sword in the creature’s throat, blood spurting from the wound.

The room smelled of blood and ozone. The guys looked around. “We won.” Eric said.

They whooped. “That was easy.” Hal looked at the blood and guts sticking to his hammer head. “But gross.”

They heard a groan and looked to see Grant on the ground in a pool of blood. “What the hell?” Eric ran over and turned Grant over onto his back. He had a dagger in his belly. “Eat shit,” Grant whispered, and then he closed his eyes, coughed up a mouthful of blood and spasmed.

Eric put a hand to Grant’s neck. “She’s dead.”

Eric shook his head. “We can die?”

The elf girl glowed and then faded away.

“So that’s it?” Eric asked. “If we die, we just go back regular prison?”

“Nope.” Madison answered.

“Hell, no,” they heard a little girl’s voice say. “Hell, no.”

They looked to see the pretty blonde elf girl had reappeared.

“When you die, you respawn, but you lose a level.” Madison watched as Grant’s pretty face registered her words. “In order to complete your rehabilitation, you must reach level 20, so each time you die, you will need to spend longer in your new body.”  Madison adjusted Grant’s character sheet to show he was now level 2 and had only 10 hit points. ‘You’ll have to be extra careful, Divinity. You’re so vulnerable.”

Grant thought he’d found a way out and now, realizing he was trapped, he felt the flesh of his body smothering him like a prison. “Lawyer. I want my lawyer.”

Madison ignored him. “Everyone else, check your sheets and you’ll see you’re now moving closer to level 4.” She tapped a few more times. “Let me walk you through the rest of the training, and we’ll start at the end– looting a corpse.”

“I said I want my lawyer,” Grant shrieked.

“Dude,” Paul said. “Just shut up already.”